Taught young star that the 'team' is always important
By Mark Sheldon / MLB.com
Joe Mauer and his mother Teresa pose at the 2001 Cretin-Derham Hall High School Mother-Son Dance. (Courtesy Joe Mauer)
MINNEAPOLIS -- Even as an 8-year-old boy in a youth baseball program in St. Paul, Joe Mauer was obsessed with hitting a baseball.
But unlike the grounded, quiet and team-oriented professional he is today, this younger Mauer didn't think as much about other areas of the game -- just hitting, and idol worship of his hometown Twins stars.
"I wanted to be Kent Hrbek or Kirby Puckett," he said.
Mauer's coach straightened him out quickly.
"She said, 'There are eight other guys out there working too,'" he remembered. "She always focused on that part. I learned a lot from her."
She?
She would be Mauer's mother, Teresa, who coached baseball by day and tucked Joe and older brothers Bill and Jake into bed at night.
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